The Tragedy of Detroit - By Frosty Wooldridge

[vivadetroit]

I think it is the constant stream of immigrants that has kept Hamtramck afloat, over the years.

and I believe it was just named one of the most "international" city in Michigan w/ 27 or so different nationalities represented.

[iheartthed]

I think it is the constant stream of immigrants that has kept Hamtramck afloat, over the years.

Immigrants is what has kept all major cities afloat -- at least the ones that aren't nearly in a failed state. I don't know what example of success this idiot Frosty Wooldridge is looking at to say immigrants killed Detroit.

[Johnnie Sue Bridges]

Checkraisej,

I think you need to get a grip. Your comment of,

“The original poster should also be ashamed for disseminating the rantings of such a racist,�

to me, is absurd. First of all, I began my post with:

“I am not familiar with this writer, but I found his article on why Detroit is failing very interesting.�

Which made it very clear that I knew nothing about this man other than he stated,

“For 15 years, from the mid 1970s to 1990, I worked in Detroit, Michigan.�

To me, his view was one of a person that I assumed lived and worked in Detroit, and that made me interested in his opinion—no matter what it was. I am interested in what everyone has to say. I have paid attention to this thread, and I hear what folks are saying. Seems to me, some folks want to scream racism about everything, and some folks like to knock people around without really listening to them. I didn’t find racism existed in any of the comments made about the article, but it was implied.

I think posting the article brought about a good discussion. However, it is too bad some folks have to get irate if someone has an opinion different from theirs.

[Bearinabox]

Which made it very clear that I knew nothing about this man other than he stated,

“For 15 years, from the mid 1970s to 1990, I worked in Detroit, Michigan.�

I'd never heard of the guy either. The issue isn't that that you posted something written by a racist, it's that the article itself is nothing but seething, irrational bigotry from start to finish. If you think the sentiments expressed in the article are worthy of our attention to the point that you're willing to actively propagate them, you should be willing to accept the...problematic implications of that.

To me, his view was one of a person that I assumed lived and worked in Detroit, and that made me interested in his opinion—no matter what it was. I am interested in what everyone has to say.

Okay, but you didn't stop at being interested. You actively spread his ideas around. You haven't posted every article that has ever been written about Detroit by someone who has lived and worked here, but you went out of your way to post this one. There are many more accurate and insightful takes about why Detroit is where it is; you could have posted any of them and started a far more stimulating discussion than this one. Most of the interesting posts on this thread are interesting in spite of the article, not because of it.

I have paid attention to this thread, and I hear what folks are saying. Seems to me, some folks want to scream racism about everything, and some folks like to knock people around without really listening to them.

Did you read the article before you posted it? The guy's entire thesis is that Detroit was perfectly fine until all those black and brown people came and wrecked it. People aren't just screaming "racism" to exercise their vocal cords. Give me a fucking break.

I think posting the article brought about a good discussion. However, it is too bad some folks have to get irate if someone has an opinion different from theirs.

There are legitimate differences of opinion, and then there is bigoted crap that is simply not worthy of discussion. Please learn the difference before foisting another "interesting" article on us.

[Retroit]

At the risk of seeming vain for speaking up for my own defense, but in order to promote future amicable discussions, I'd like to delineate what I agree with, what I don't agree with, [and the reasons why].

THE TRAGEDY OF DETROIT
This is a powerful message about the failure of the Great Society.

How in the world do we get out of this mess? This is a perfect example of how good intentions without good foresight can produce an absolute nightmare. Never underestimate the downside of human nature. The author of the following piece is a U.S. journalist who writes for seventeen national and two international magazines.

THE TRAGEDY OF DETROIT: HOW IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURALISM DESTROYED IT
By Frosty Wooldridge

For 15 years, from the mid 1970s to 1990, I worked in Detroit , Michigan. I watched it descend into the abyss of crime, debauchery, gun play, drugs, school truancy, car-jacking, gangs and human depravity. I watched entire city blocks burned out. I watched graffiti explode on buildings, cars, trucks, buses and school yards. Trash was everywhere! Detroiters walked through it, tossed more into it and just ignored it.

Tens of thousands and then, hundreds of thousands today exist on federal welfare, free housing and food stamps! With Aid to
Dependent Children, minority women birthed eight to 10 and, in one case, one woman birthed 24 kids as reported by the Detroit Free Press-all on American taxpayer dollars. A new child meant a new car payment, new TV and whatever mom wanted. I saw Lyndon Baines Johnson's "Great Society" flourish in Detroit. If you give money for doing nothing, you will get more hands out to take money for doing nothing.

Mayor Coleman Young, perhaps the most corrupt mayor in America, outside of Richard Daley in Chicago, rode Detroit down to its knees. He set the benchmark for cronyism, incompetence and arrogance. As a black man, he said, "I am the MFIC." The IC meant 'in charge'. You can figure out the rest. Detroit became a majority black city with 67 percent
African-Americans.

As a United Van Lines truck driver for my summer job from teaching math and science, I loaded hundreds of American families into my van for a new life in another city or state. Detroit plummeted from 1.8 million citizens to 912,000 today. At the same time, legal and illegal immigrants converged on the city, so much so, that Muslims number over 300,000. Mexicans number 400,000 throughout Michigan, but most work in Detroit .

As the whites moved out, the Muslims moved in. [Not entirely true, as many non-Muslims also moved in.] As the crimes became more violent, the whites fled. Finally, unlawful Mexicans moved in at a torrid pace. [Exaggeration] Detroit suffers so much shoplifting that grocery stores no longer operate in many inner city locations.

You could cut the racial tension in the air with a knife! Detroit may be one our best [[extreme) examples of multiculturalism: pure dislike and total separation from America!
Today, you hear Muslim calls to worship over the city like a new American Baghdad [Gross exaggeration] with hundreds of Islamic mosques in Michigan, paid for by Saudi Arabia oil money. [Not verified, but I'm doubtful] High school flunk out rates reached 76 percent last June according to NBC's Brian Williams. Classrooms resemble more foreign countries than America. English? Few speak it! The city features a 50 percent illiteracy rate and growing. Unemployment hit 28.9 percent in 2009 as the auto industry vacated the city.
In Time Magazine October 4, 2009, "The Tragedy of Detroit: How a great city fell and how it can rise again," I choked on the writer's description of what happened.

"If Detroit had been savaged by a hurricane and submerged by a ravenous flood, we'd know a lot more about it," said Daniel Okrent. "If drought and carelessness had spread brush fires across the city, we'd see it on the evening news every night. Earthquake, tornadoes, you name it - if natural disaster had devastated the city that was once the living proof of American prosperity, the rest of the country might take notice.

But Detroit, once our fourth largest city, now 11th and slipping rapidly, has had no such luck. Its disaster has long been a slow unwinding that seemed to remove it from the rest of the country. Even the death rattle that in the past year emanated from its signature industry brought more attention to the auto executives than to the people of the city, who had for so long been victimized by their dreadful decision-making."

As Coleman Young's corruption brought the city to its knees, no amount of federal dollars could save the incredible payoffs, kick backs and illegality permeating his administration. I witnessed the city's death from the seat of my 18-wheeler tractor trailer because I moved people out of every sector of decaying Detroit .

"By any quantifiable standard, the city is on life support. Detroit 's treasury is $300 million short of the funds needed to provide the barest municipal services," Okrent said. "The school system, which six years ago was compelled by the teachers' union to reject a philanthropist's offer of $200 million to build 15 small, independent charter high schools, is in receivership. The murder rate is soaring, and 7 out of 10 remain unsolved. Three years after Katrina devastated New Orleans, unemployment in that city hit a peak of 11%. In Detroit, the unemployment rate is 28.9% That's worth spelling out: twenty-eight point nine percent."

At the end of Okrent's report, and he will write a dozen more about Detroit, he said, "That's because the story of Detroit is not simply one of a great city's collapse. It's also about the erosion of the industries that helped build the country we know today. The ultimate fate of Detroit will reveal much about the character of America in the 21st century. If what was once the most prosperous manufacturing city in the nation has been brought to its knees, what does that say about our recent past? And if it can't find a way to get up, what does that say about our future?"

As you read in my book review of Chris Steiner's book, $20 Per Gallon, the auto industry won't come back [[to Detroit). Immigration will keep pouring more and more uneducated third world immigrants from the Middle East into Detroit -thus creating a beachhead for Islamic hegemony in America. [Not likely, but possible] If the 50 percent illiteracy continues, we will see more homegrown terrorists spawned out of the Muslim ghettos of Detroit. [Not necessarily.]Illiteracy plus Islam equals walking human bombs. You have already seen it in Madrid, Spain; London, England and Paris, France with train bombings, subway bombings and riots. [I don't think that most of the terrorists are illiterate. In fact, many of them were quite literate. But I'm also not an advocate of illiteracy.] As their numbers grow, so will their power to enact their barbaric Sharia Law that negates republican forms of government, first amendment rights and subjugates women to the lowest rungs on the human ladder. We will see more honor killings by upset husbands, fathers and brothers that demand subjugation by their daughters, sisters and wives. Muslims prefer to use beheadings of women to scare the hell out of any other members of their sect from straying. [Not necessarily. I think most Muslims in the United States have a more enlightened understanding of Islam. But there is a certain small percent of hard-liners, so there is a possibility that incidents of abuse against women may increase.]

Multiculturalism: what a perfect method to kill our language, culture, country and way of life. [If by "multi-culturalism", he means accepting the bad traits of a culture as opposed to accepting just the good, then I agree.]

I PRAY EVERYONE THAT READS THIS REALIZES THAT IF WE DON'T ALL STAND UP AND SCREAM AT WASHINGTON AND OUR CITY LEADERS THIS IS WHAT AWAITS AMERICA . IF YOU FOLLOW THE NEWS AT ALL YOU KNOW THIS HAS HAPPENED IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE AND SPAIN .. IF YOU THINK THIS IS JUST A BUNCH OF HOOEY AND YOU FEEL NO DUTY TO FIGHT FOR THIS COUNTRY, THEN I'M SORRY, I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT WILL TAKE FOR YOU TO STAND AND FIGHT.

A few additional points. As I said initially, I think he has exaggerated the threat from Muslims. He has identified some serious problems in Detroit, but linking them solely to Muslims is not accurate. It may be true that as the number of Muslims increase, the number of Muslim terrorists may increase, but that doesn't explain why Detroit is currently in the bad condition that it is in.

[bartock]

I like [[insert) people.

Some of my best friends are [[insert) people.

There is that one [[insert) person on TV[[and/or a movie). He/She is my favorite.

I often [[stereotypical activity attribute to race/culture). It's fun.

[Johnnie Sue Bridges]

Bearinabox,
I suppose I should humbly back down and listen to your command of,

“Please learn the difference before foisting another "interesting" article on us.�

However—this article, whether it be good or bad, certainly got you on here breaking down every word people speak—now didn’t it! Why did you bother if the discussion was not worthy?

Remember what you said, “There are legitimate differences of opinion,�

But no matter what you think, sir/mam, they are worthy of discussion. See, I even took the time to reply to you, because you are equally important!

[GOAT]

Other than cronyism and incompetence [[except for Archer in most cases) the rest of the article is shit.

Detroit wishes it had an immigration problem. In fact immigration does more to turn around a recession that is does hamper it. Many studies back that up.

Immigrants are harder working, more entrepreneurial and save more $$$ than us lazy layabout N. americans. They have to because they are often at a disadvantage.

I HATE people who bullshit about immigration being such a negative force [[unless illegal). This is nothing but racist crap.

[Retroit]

In fact immigration does more to turn around a recession that is does hamper it. Many studies back that up.

I'd like to see those studies. Most great waves of immigration happen during times of prosperity. It is the opportunity of employment which draws them here. If the number of jobs are reduced, as in a recession, they must compete for jobs with those already unemployed.

In a developing economy, immigrants traditionally take low wage, low skill jobs, replacing those that go on to higher wage, higher skilled jobs. So it is to the benefit of everyone. But when industry advances and low skilled, low wage jobs are reduced, immigrants begin to compete for higher wage jobs. This poses a problem because the people they replace have no higher paying jobs to go to.

[iheartthed]

Mr. Woolridge must not have read this one:

There is no shortage of theories to explain the dramatic drop in crime that transformed New York City during the 1990s.

The so-called “broken windows theory”, beloved by Giuliani-era Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, has its champions and skeptics. The robust economy did its part. Increased incaceration rates probably helped, too.

But new evidence suggests that the New York crime miracle may have been driven, in part, by the city’s large population of immigrants.

Tim Wadsworth, a professor of sociology at the University of Colorado, studied U.S. cities with more than 50,000 people, collecting statistics on murder and robberies from the FBI and demographic data from the Census between 1990 and 2000. His conclusion defies a common perception that an influx of immigrants can increase social problems, including crime.

“The cities that experience the greatest growth in immigration were the same one that were experiencing the greatest declines in violent crime,” he said. “While I don’t think I or anyone else will argue that immigration can explain the bulk of the crime drop, it seems like this is an important piece of the puzzle.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2010...ks-crime-drop/

[terryh]

I'd like to see those studies. Most great waves of immigration happen during times of prosperity. It is the opportunity of employment which draws them here. If the number of jobs are reduced, as in a recession, they must compete for jobs with those already unemployed.

In a developing economy, immigrants traditionally take low wage, low skill jobs, replacing those that go on to higher wage, higher skilled jobs. So it is to the benefit of everyone. But when industry advances and low skilled, low wage jobs are reduced, immigrants begin to compete for higher wage jobs. This poses a problem because the people they replace have no higher paying jobs to go to.

Makes sense....and labor shortages bump wages...I know from working in retail in management and worker level, when the economy is going strong, managers can hire workers at close to top rate [[union contract)......

[UnsteadyYeti]

I don't know whats worse:

Ignorant Racisim
or
A racisit who thinks he is intelligent.

This shit makes me want to vomit.